A nationwide increase in fuel prices is hitting the wallets of local governments, with both Southold and Riverhead towns feeling the impact. At barely past the half-year mark, some departments have already blown through their annual fuel budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The war between Russia and Ukraine, along with some other factors, has led gas prices to hit record highs in 2022 with the nationwide average ticking above $5 per gallon in June. Although prices have dropped in recent weeks, the average price for regular gas in New York on Aug. 15 was $4.17, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, about a dollar per gallon higher than prices around the same time last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just did a study about four months ago, and basically everything went up like two dollars per gallon,\u201d said Mike Zaleski, Riverhead\u2019s highway superintendent. \u201cSo we\u2019re all preparing our budgets for next year and preparing for the rise in all these fuel costs. I would say it\u2019s increased on a percentage by 50% at least, close to 60%.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell similarly estimated a 50% increase in fuel expenditures if trends stay the same, although that may not be the case if costs continue to drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The police and highway departments are among the most heavily dependent on fuel costs, he said. The Southold Police Department, which originally budgeted $110,000, has already spent $112,000 on fuel by mid-August and the highway department, which is normally allotted around $105,000, has already been allocated approximately another $34,000 for fuel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some other programs, such as Meals on Wheels, have also been impacted, he said, although that\u2019s been offset by hybrid and electric vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Zaleski also noted the impacts to the police and highway departments, adding that every department has been impacted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven on a smaller scale, buildings and grounds will be riding lawn mowers every day. Across the board, it\u2019s really affected [Riverhead] town,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riverhead\u2019s Finance Administrator Bill Rothaar said the town hasn\u2019t needed to make budget transfers yet due to the increases in fuel prices, which have been going back down recently. The highway department cut its fuel costs from $180,000 to $170,000 this year, he noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe cut gas because we needed to cut something and we had not spent it all in highway,\u201d he said. The Riverhead Town Board sets the highway budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Rothaar said that the town would, if needed, \u201cfind a line in highway budget and then when we needed it \u2014 let\u2019s say in November or December \u2014 we could transfer that into the gas budget. But right now, we have no lines that are overspent or near being overspent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While fuel prices are usually volatile and difficult to predict, this year\u2019s spike has put Southold Town \u201cin a situation where our actual costs will far exceed what we had estimated originally for fuel costs, and there\u2019s no way to escape that,\u201d according to Mr. Russell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re budgeting at the beginning of the year, you\u2019re looking at trends over the past two, three, four years. I like to go back sometimes as far back as five years if I can, depending on what I\u2019m budgeting for,\u201d he said. \u201cThe problem is, the budget that I present to the board every fall, it\u2019s a best guess-estimate based on previous costs of previous expenditures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Southold Town buys fuel in bulk by state bid and has its own fuel depot with two 7,500 gallon tanks, according to Mr. Russell. The additional funding is drawn from contingencies, a portion of the budget set aside to cover unforeseen costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s peaks and valleys and you need to be able to absorb those in any budget,\u201d Mr. Russell said. \u201cIs it challenging? Absolutely. But it\u2019s a large budget. And one of the things about falling short in any one line, it forces you to be conservative and look at other lines. That should be your first instinct, is to say, where can we find the funds to pay for this? By cutting back on other parts of the budget. That\u2019s the challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The toll fuel prices have taken on town budgets shouldn\u2019t be a surprise to anyone, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThings fluctuate from year to year. Fuel tends to be very volatile. We\u2019ll adjust, we\u2019ll be fine,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you run government, you\u2019re going to find these challenges. This happens to be more challenging than most but we\u2019ve been through things like this before and we\u2019ll muddle through just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A nationwide increase in fuel prices is hitting the wallets of local governments, with both Southold and Riverhead towns feeling the impact. At barely past the half-year mark, some departments have already blown through their annual fuel budgets. The war between Russia and Ukraine, along with some other factors, has led gas prices to hit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1984,"featured_media":112284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1743,3693,35],"tags":[15380,15379,8448,13186,1839],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-112283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-story","category-government","category-news","tag-fuel","tag-fuel-prices","tag-gas-prices","tag-premium","tag-riverhead-highway-department"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n